While computers are conventionally used to facilitate trading of securities, manual intervention is still typically required at certain steps in the trading process. For example, traders at institutional investment management firms typically record their orders to purchase or sell securities in computerized order management systems (OMS's). Historically, one or more traders at each firm must manually review the orders in the OMS and attempt fill the orders by contacting one or more market intermediaries. The traders transmit the orders in the OMS by telephone or separate data entry links to registered broker-dealers for the securities, to electronic marketplaces that trade the securities, or to other market intermediaries.
Among those benefits and improvements that have been disclosed, other objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying figures. The figures constitute a part of this specification and include illustrative embodiments of the present invention and illustrate various objects and features thereof.